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Joan Baez - Childhood III [HD]

650 views · Published 18 May 2018 · 1:12 · Indexed 6 November 2026

Channel: Gary Larson · 2018 · People & Blogs

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Joan Baez recites 'Childhood III'. This is the third section (of 5) of the Arthur Rimbaud poem 'Childhood' and is on her 1968 Vanguard album 'Baptism: A Journey Through Our Time'. The lyrics are below with some notes on Rimbaud and the album.

[CD/9-Images]

Childhood III

Singer - Joan Baez

In the woods there is a bird; 
his song stops you and makes you blush. 
There is a clock that never strikes. 
There is a hollow [swamp] with a nest of white beasts.

There is a cathedral that goes down and a lake that goes [comes] up.
There is a little carriage abandoned in the copse 
or that goes running down the road beribboned. 
There is a troupe of little actors [strolling players] in costume,
 glimpsed on the road through the border of the woods. 
And then, when you are hungry and thirsty, 
there is someone who drives you away [there's someone who chases you away].

Note: Changes from the poem in Baez' recitation are shown in brackets.

Songwriters: Arthur Rimbaud (Poem Lyrics), Louis Varese (Music)

[Lyrics from poemhunter.com] 

Wikipedia states:

Jean Nicolas Arthur Rimbaud (20 October 1854 - 10 November 1891) was a French poet who is known for his influence on modern literature and arts, which prefigured surrealism. Born in Charleville-Mézières, he started writing at a very young age and excelled as a student, but abandoned his formal education in his teenage years to run away from home to Paris amidst the Franco-Prussian War. During his late adolescence and early adulthood he began the bulk of his literary output, but completely stopped writing at the age of 21, after assembling one of his major works, Illuminations.

Rimbaud was known to have been a libertine and a restless soul, having engaged in an at times violent romantic relationship with fellow poet Paul Verlaine, which lasted nearly two years. After the end of his literary career, he traveled extensively on three continents as a merchant before his death from cancer just after his thirty-seventh birthday. As a poet, Rimbaud is well known for his contributions to Symbolism and, among other works, A Season in Hell, which was a significant precursor to modernist literature.

Baptism: A Journey Through Our Time was a 1968 album of poetry spoken and sung by Joan Baez. Peter Schickele (of P. D. Q. Bach fame) did the orchestration, as he did on 1967's Joan. The album was released during a time when many folk, pop and rock artists were experimenting with mixing their music with classical orchestration (e.g. The Beatles, Judy Collins, The Rolling Stones).

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